Dienstag, 22.10.2024 / 21:55 Uhr

Sudan: Nachrichten aus der Katastrophe

Soldaten der sudanesischen Armee, Bildquelle: Rawpixels

Aktuelle Berichte aus dem Sudan:

Sudan's escalating conflict worsens humanitarian situation (DW):

The site of the latest escalation is Khartoum, the nation's capital, where the SAF has launched a major offensive to retake areas under RSF control. According to local emergency response rooms, civilian-led initiatives that were nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize for supporting civilians, recent clashes have killed scores of people in Khartoum markets.

Sudan's army and the RSF have been engaged in a civil war since April 2023 that has plunged Sudan into a humanitarian crisis. The conflict stemmed from a power struggle between Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who had previously shared power after a military coup in 2021.

At least 20,000 people have been killed, but the death toll is likely to be much higher as the ongoing fighting and the collapse of the health system has made updating or verifying casualty figures impossible.

According to the United Nations, the war has also prompted the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than 11 million people displaced to refugee camps and neighboring countries. The UN also said in early October that famine and the outbreak of diseases like cholera have further exacerbated an already desperate situation.

Millions have escaped Sudan’s civil war. But their nightmare isn’t over (CNN):

This is how civilians are dying in Sudan’s civil war. Not only by bullets and bombs, but from chronic hunger, thirst, disease, repeated displacement, and dire living conditions. Limited access to health care means illness and starvation lead to slow, painful and preventable deaths. “Conservative estimates say the conflict has killed at least 15,500 people, while some estimates are as high as 150,000, and counting,” according to the International Rescue Committee.

Trade routes, farms, commerce, agricultural infrastructure, and hospitals have all been devastated by the fighting. About half of the country’s 50 million people are now facing the world’s worst hunger crisis, portending a catastrophic famine of the kind not seen since Ethiopia in the 1980s. Health clinics in eastern Chad are filled with severely malnourished children, and refugees fleeing Darfur now say that hunger, not violence, is the main reason they left. Famine was declared in North Darfur in August, and aid agencies have warned that nearly 222,000 Sudanese children could starve to death this year.

Sudan war risks 'lost generation' of children (Reuters):

While the world’s attention is fixated on conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, a devastating crisis is unfolding in Sudan, where the most vulnerable members of society – children – are bearing the brunt of the violence.

War in Sudan has created the world’s largest child displacement crisis, with nearly 5 million children on the move since the fighting began 18 months ago.

Thousands of children, like Ahmed, have been killed.

For those who survive, the future looks bleak.

Every day, scores of Sudanese refugees pour across the border into camps in South Sudan, bringing with them harrowing tales of the toll the conflict is taking on children.

Famine is wreaking havoc in parts of Sudan, with children facing severe malnutrition. Millions of children have no access to education and healthcare, and many face sexual violence, exploitation and recruitment by armed groups.

Aid agencies grappling to respond are stymied by a lack of foreign aid, restricted access due to intense fighting and the targeting of staff and aid supplies. They warn that the consequences for Sudan’s children could be catastrophic.

“Children’s lives in Sudan have been utterly torn apart and changed forever, with unimaginable loss, physical and emotional distress and prevalent violations of their rights,” said Mohamed Abdiladif, interim Country Director for Save the Children in Sudan.

Sudan’s brutal war has become many wars, making peace even harder to reach (Durham University):

At present, Sudan faces either the long-term absence of central authority or, more dramatically, an effective division into two or more states, whether or not these are internationally recognised. Some might say we should not mourn this – Sudan was a colonial creation, made by violence and predation. But this is an outcome that may only increase misery and misrule.

However, there is still resistance amid the ruination. Sudan’s post-Bashir transition to democracy, as envisaged by the UN and others, is long dead. But in some vital ways, the popular revolution that toppled Bashir lives on.

Grassroots emergency response rooms organise whatever lifesaving support for desperate communities that they can. And women and youth – the revolution’s vanguard – continue to organise, agitate and debate Sudan’s future among themselves, as well as demand a role in making it. They deserve our solidarity.

Many, both Sudanese and non-Sudanese, refuse to let go of the idea of a better Sudan that has never yet been realised, but just might rise up from these ashes.